My Review of Transformers: Animated season 2 episode 9--Autobot Camp · 2:03am Jul 11th, 2021
Grading Scale:
A (fantastic episode)
A- (an excellent episode with at least one flaw)
B+ (a great episode with a couple of flaws)
B (a good episode which still could have been better)
B- (a good episode with numerous flaws but still rewatchable)
C+ (a decent episode)
C (eh... it’s not terrible but not good either)
C- (it’s not worth rewatching although it does have good elements)
D+ (a bad episode with a few good things in it)
D (a really bad episode with wasted potential)
D- (a terrible episode with badly written characters and butchered moral)
F (horrible and unwatchable)
Good evening, folks! This is Mr. J once again with another episode review for Transformers: Animated! This evening, I will be talking about episode 9: "Autobot Camp". To be honest with you guys, this is my least favorite episode of this whole season, not to mention that it contains some of my least favorite characters of the entire show. First off, even though it was actually nice the writers gave us a backstory for both Bumblebee and Bulkhead as well as providing character conflict between them, the other characters kinda ruined the episode for me. No, I am not specifically referring to Sentinel Prime (who was Sentinel Minor during that time). Before I rant further, allow me to acknowledge the other positive this episode contained:
We are introduced to this new version of one of the most famous Decepticons of the Transformers universe... Shockwave!
This version of the character has the ability to shapeshift into an Autobot with a fake name: Longarm. I thought it was really impressive he managed to fool everyone as he sought and acquired Autobot intelligence as one of their own while secretly working for Megatron. Boy, this episode practically pulled an "Among Us" on the characters and the audience. Shockwave took the whole "robots in disguise" gimmick into a whole another level! He is one of my favorite incarnations of the character, and the fact that Corey Burton reprised his role as Shockwave was a bonus since he already voiced him back in the original Transformers G1 series.
As for the negatives I have for this episode, I dislike their version of Ironhide and also this new character named Wasp (who later became Waspinator). I hated the fact that he was a complete jerk to Bumblebee and later on became a victim of Shockwave's deception that he was the Autobot traitor. It would have been more effective if he was actually a decent, respectful 'Bot who was a close friend to Bumblebee; then when Bumblebee mistakenly suspects him as a traitor since he sees a Decepticon transmitter within his compartment and hands him over to Sentinel, Wasp feels confused, betrayed, and spark-broken that Bumblebee would pull such a move on him and thought that their friendship was actually legit, but it was all for naught and a farce. To me, that would have made him a much more tragic character.
But no... he's just a complete asshole to 'Bee and to Bulkhead from the start, and I am supposed to feel sorry for him? That they sent an innocent Autobot to the stockade? Fuck you, Wasp.
Ironhide was nothing more than a background character with little personality and development. However, his famous line "Hit me with everything you got, Sir!", combined with his shocking death in Transformers: Dark of the Moon when Sentinel killed him, has sadly become a meme all over the internet. This video is one of them...
While I am glad this episode taught the value of friendship and support, it was ruined by characters that had little in the ways of personality and decency. Thus, I give it a C-.
Peace.
Would the fact that Wasp went into a Gollum mental-state mark a grade off?
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That felt completely unearned because of his previous demeanor as shown in this episode. If he was actually a decent character turned to tragic character, that mental breakdown he suffered from during all those years in prison would have felt completely justified.
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Okay, you got me there. Still, it was creepy.
Oh… this episode. Is it weird to say that I kinda forgot that this episode even existed? While I was going to do this trivia for Ironhide, I realized that the most interesting things about him come from other characters trivia,(Bulkhead and Sentinel, to be precise). Shockwave it is then. After all… it’s the only logical thing to do in this situation.
1. Actor Corey Burton reprises the role of Shockwave from Generation 1, reusing precisely the same British-accented, David-Warner-inspired voice for the character (while employing an American accented variation for Longarm). In an online interview with Seibertron.com in early 2009 (sadly lost owing to a server crash), Burton revealed that Shockwave's inclusion in Season 2 arose from a between-scenes conversation he had with the production team, regarding how little the original Shockwave actually had to do.
2. In somewhat of a reversal, while this incarnation of Shockwave has much fewer appearances than his original incarnation, he does a heck of a lot more stuff: in just a few fleeting appearances on Animated, Shockwave manages to infiltrate the Cybertronian ranks as the Chief Communications Officer, become a Prime, destroy Wasp's life, kill/nearly kill a popular recurring character,(Blurr), bring down Cybertron's entire interplanetary transport and communications system, brutally assault the Magnus (and steal his hammer!), and give Megatron control of the Autobots' most feared and powerful weapon, Omega Supreme. Oh, and according to the Almanacs, he probably offed Highbrow, and Magnus wasn't going to survive. Are we sure we’re still talking about Shockwave?
3. The DVD closed captioning for the episode "Autoboot Camp" misspelled Shockwave's name as Chugway. Here’s an image and funny caption for proof.
tfwiki.net/mediawiki/images2/d/d2/Chugway.jpg
Loyal servant to the Decepticon Leader Mechatross.
4. While Shockwave possesses the single, round optic and window-chest of his Generation 1 counterpart, much of the rest of his body appears to be largely patterned after Armada Megatron; he transforms into an "H-tank", the front treads end up on his shoulders and the rear treads end up on the back of his lower legs, plus he has the large, spiky "antlers" on his head.
5. Despite not having a face, Shockwave still manages to have a chin.
6. Like Soundwave, Shockwave has the ability to fly despite having a land-based vehicle mode. Unlike Soundwave, his ability is explained by having rocket boosters in his feet like several other Decepticons.
7. Before his color change into his classic purple, Shockwave's singular optic had an iris, which disappeared after he returned to Megatron's side.
And finally…
8. While doing research on this episode for trivia, I noticed something that you might find humorous. The name of this episode is Autoboot Camp. Shout! Factories thought that this was somehow wrong, because their release of the entire series misspells this episode's title as "Autobot Camp" in the episode selection menu and on the inside of the DVD case, apparently believing that the episode's original title was a typo itself.
Ps. This is the original meme.
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This is exactly why G1 Shockwave is my least favorite version of the character. Despite the fact he is a classic fan-favorite of many fans, he barely did anything of significance for the story in the original series. Here are my favorite versions of the Decepticon as follows:
1. Prime Shockwave
2. Animated Shockwave
3. WFC/FOC Shockwave
That's almost exactly what I heard the first time I've watched this episode back in 2008. I thought Megatron said "Jacques-Way" at the end there. Pretty weird, right? I must've misheard his name.
You can still see his iris even after he changed his color scheme. It's just that there was a consistency issue in which it would appear on and off. Plus, whenever his optic brightens up, the iris would disappear. Make up your minds, animators!
That was purely a coincidence! Did you notice I made this same typo mistake in my review title? I was going to correct my typo since you brought it up, but I am now deciding against it for the sole purpose of making it more practical.
Already showcased that at the end of my review.
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This is late, but what I meant by my, “This is the original meme.”, was that the video I linked was the original, I.e. that it was the first.